Plan to bring water, sewer to Tamina falls apart

Lack of support from community dooms efforts

Published 5:30 am, Thursday, October 7, 2004

The $3.3 million project to bring water and sewer service to Tamina is dead, at least under the plan's existing structure.

The Tamina Water Supply and Sewer Service Corp. voted last week to inform state and county entities willing to fund the project that it won't proceed because of differences with plan structuring.

Some Tamina residents want control of the water service returned to them after a 20-year loan to state and county entities is repaid. Since Tamina is an unincorporated community, it isn't eligible for the loan without assistance from other municipalities such as nearby Oak Ridge North. Parts of Tamina would tap into that city's water system.

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The move came after months of jousting on the long-talked-about project that began jelling in 2001 with the formation of the Tamina Water Supply and Sewer Service Corp. Some Tamina residents objected that the plan would leave control of the water system with the Tamina Water Supply and Sewer Service Corp.

Community apathy

James Leveston
, president of the Tamina Water Supply Corp., a 25-year-old Tamina-controlled entity unrelated to the other water corporation, said recent results of 200 surveys circulated in the 628-acre, 280 to 300 estimated home, unincorporated community underscored that point.

Although survey results showed 36 of 38 respondents approved the plan, the apathetic turnout is more indicative of sentiment in the community,Leveston said. "At the rate it's going, I don't want to see the project terminated, but I don't want to accept it as it is. We want the water and sewer, but we don't want it on the conditions that have been laid before us," Leveston said.

Leveston clarified "us" as referring to opposing Tamina residents, not the Tamina Water Supply and Sewer Service Corp. board on which he serves.

One of the key hindrances of the plan is the refusal of Leveston, as president of the existing water corporation, to turn over the corporation's certificate of convenience and necessity, despite a June 2001 letter agreeing to do so. Certificates of convenience and necessity are state-issued requirements of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for entities wanting to provide water service.

Leveston said in holding onto the certificate he is acting on behalf of a majority of residents who want the certificate turned back over to them once the bonds are paid off.

Loan structure

As the potential loan is structured, it would be paid with a 20-year plan of just more than $160,000 per year as a safeguard, with projections calling for the loan optimally to be repaid with $250,000 payments over 11 years.

Oak Ridge North city officials, who would service a large part of Tamina while the rest of the community would tap into Shenandoah's system, have said no to a written promise of returning the certificate because of the state loan requirements, but have made a verbal promise to do so. Leveston said many Tamina residents don't want to proceed with the plan without written documentation.

Standing still

Gary Louie
, president of the Tamina Water Supply and Sewer Service Corp., said without the certificate of convenience, the project is at a standstill anyway.

"We don't have that document, we can't move forward. We can't move further along and we need to notify those partners that made commitments to us. Our project as we have defined it — there may be another group who can go back to those partners with a compelling argument — our project is at a stalemate," Louie said.

The Tamina Water Supply and Sewer Service Corp. could conceivably apply for a separate certificate of convenience and necessity. But Tim Austin, the organization's attorney, said that action likely would be contested and rack up court expenses for a probable ruling that at best would give Tamina residents the option to pick from either of the corporations for water service.

A split certificate of convenience and necessity, however, wouldn't appease either county or state loan requirements. "The debt is (repaid) by revenues and those revenues are only guaranteed by having one (certificate)," Austin said.

Lack of support

Louie said certificate issue aside, tepid survey response was in effect a deal breaker anyway, because neither county or state funding for the project would be approved with lukewarm community support.

"It's a project that has been talked about for three years. It was formalized over a year ago and it's funded by a partial loan from the Texas Water Development Board and monies that have been allocated through community development. What we're talking about is terminating this project with these criteria, these demands, these restrictions as it's laid out before us," Louie said.